The eagerly awaited Oldham report on whole person care has now been published with the catchy title One Person, One Team, One System. Commissioned by the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, and led by former Department of Health director Sir John Oldham, the report has been eagerly grasped by Ed Miliband and looks set to form the basis of future Labour party health strategy. What lies in store?

Much of the answer is a bundle of existing ideas. The well-established case for integrated care is rehearsed, along with familiar calls for person-centred care and better engagement with patients and the public. Self-care is to be encouraged, citizen engagement promoted, integrated teams established, information shared and patients allocated a "care co-ordinator". We've been here before with little track record of success, but Oldham does go further. In particular he proposes:

• A "new compact with citizens" – an "independent national conversation" looking at the future of health and care, to be completed within a year of the general election• New provider outcomes-based approaches such as the accountable care organisation model, though this should be left for local decision• Extended primary care services to provide more support for people in the community and at home• A reformed "whole person payment system" to replace the current payment by results tariff that incentivises fragmentation

With these proposals, Oldham seems to be drawing heavily on recent reports from the King's Fund, Nuffield Trust and others – indeed their influence looms large throughout the report. Those expecting a more political approach might be disappointed by the technical tone of the review.

The task facing Oldham was to come up with a recipe for change that did not involve yet more structural upheaval. Accordingly he emphasises that "relationships and culture trump structures", and laments the recent loss of knowledge and experience in the health and care system – "a form of organisational dementia" as he puts it. Nevertheless he cannot resist some tinkering with the current structures:

•NHS England should be renamed Care England "to reflect the needs of the majority of people using the health and care system"• Clinical senates – barely established - should be abolished• Monitor and CQC to merge – a proposal also made in the Francis report• The strengthening of health and wellbeing boards to take on a stronger strategic role in local health and care systems

The warm welcome given to the report by Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is in some measure a rebuff to the ideas of the person behind the establishment of the Oldham commission, Andy Burnham. Two of Burnham's key ideas – putting local government in charge of healthcare commissioning and making NHS trusts the "preferred provider" – are nowhere to be seen. Instead, Oldham puts his faith in health and wellbeing boards or, as he strangely puts it, "analogous local arrangements".

The elevation of these largely invisible boards to such a pivotal position is intriguing, especially since they were only dreamed up as a coalition sop to the Liberal Democrats to compensate for the loss of their policy on elected board members on the old primary care trusts. We still know little about these boards, and most patients and members of the public will be totally unaware of their existence. Indeed, even Ed Miliband, in a recent speech, mistakenly referred to them as "independent bodies". Far too much is riding on them as the custodians of what Oldham calls "the locality pound".

Although turgidly technical for the most part, Oldham does acknowledge the incompatibility of collaboration and competition. He urges "considerations of care firmly before those of competition" and reiterates Burnham's call for the repeal of the section 75 regulations on compulsory tendering. However, these are somewhat throwaway remarks towards the end of the report, with no exploration of what will be necessary for the NHS to elude the clutches of domestic and European competition law.

Oddly, for a report commissioned by a left-wing politician to inform a future Labour government, the Oldham report reads apolitically. Much of it is simply lifted from thinktank publications, and the support for the work from PwC and KPMG only seems to add to the impression of a somewhat "establishment" report. For all the talk of "people-powered public services" there is no indication whatsoever in this report of how the NHS can become more accountable to local populations.

What are we left with? A worthy report but one hardly likely to set political pulses racing in the run-up to the general election, and probably doing nothing to assuage the worries of those opposed to the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Two cheers out of three – at best – for Sir John?